


the loveliest angels (make the deadliest demons)

by aelin6crows



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: BAMF Hermione Granger, Book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, F/M, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Hurt/Comfort, Occlumency (Harry Potter)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:53:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27051478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aelin6crows/pseuds/aelin6crows
Summary: Hermione Granger has always been the girl behind a book, more at home in a library or in a fictional world, than among conversations of quidditch or boys or hobbies. That didn’t change when she went to Hogwarts and made friends that didn’t whisper behind her back, she just became more.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Fred Weasley
Comments: 18
Kudos: 97





	the loveliest angels (make the deadliest demons)

**Author's Note:**

> HI, so I've been quite obsessed in the past year or so with Fremione as a ship, and while this fit isn't heavily featuring their relationship, I will probably play with it more in the future. This work definitely plays more with the idea of the extremes Hermione is willing to go to and how much she will sacrifice for Harry and her belief in the war. I hope you enjoy it, and thanks for reading.
> 
> Obviously don't own anything except the plot. :)

Hermione Granger has always been the girl behind a book, more at home in a library or in a fictional world, than among conversations of quidditch or boys or hobbies. That didn’t change when she went to Hogwarts and made friends that didn’t whisper behind her back, she just became more.

She still enjoyed the library and books, the fictional characters that she had grown up with. But it was different, because now she had friends to continue growing up with. (And, anyway, life was turning out to be like those books she treasured, so where was the escape, really?) Books became about learning, teaching, surviving.

She read everything she could, Harry and Ron make jokes about how she must have read every book in the library (and it’s not quite true because there’s a few books in German that she hasn’t gotten around to yet and a whole shelf between seventh year charms and first year transfiguration that she keeps meaning to look at but there isn’t enough time- and don’t get her started on the restricted section that Madame Pince guards like a hawk). What she doesn’t tell them is that one time she asked McGonagall if anyone had ever read as many books in that library as Hermione, and she had stared at her for a moment, face carefully blank but slightly pensive, and said _Tom Riddle_. At the time it was just a name that she had seen in passing as Head Boy, or the award he got for Special Services to the school.

When she learnt who he was she vomited and vowed to never be that lonely (because he must have been to look to books, even now he didn’t have equals- friends- only followers and servants). She vowed to never find solace in the dark arts even if everything went wrong. At that time she couldn’t imagine a worst case, not really, she looked around at the students of the DA, the first years she was meant to protect, and thought that seeing them dead, tortured would be the worst it could get (and how right she was but also how wrong, wrong, wrong). But she looked to Harry, the bright hope of the Wizarding World, and in some naïve part of her mind, she thought that it would all be okay, as long as he was there.

So, she was there for him when she could be, and shoved friends and books and food and blankets and whatever else he need when she wasn’t enough. Out of the three of them she was the brains, the oldest, the _girl_. While Harry was picked on for his status as The-Boy-Who-Lived, and Ron for his quidditch skills (which soon turned to praise after the stint with the liquid luck), Hermione was teased for her knowledge, her hair, her blood status, her boyfriends (or who they thought were boyfriends). She was told to ignore it; it wasn’t true after all. 

But what if she was a boy. Boys were praised for girlfriends; she had witnessed enough jokes to know that. Some slept with a different girl every week and were treated like royalty for their ability to flirt and charm. The girls were called names like _whore_ , and _slag_ , and _bitch_. Her cleverness was ridiculed by friend and foe alike, where Malfoy was jealous of being beaten out of the top spot, Harry and Ron teased her for her effort, and then asked for homework help in the same sentence.

She built walls around herself, used books on occlumency found between the potions and defence against the dark arts shelves to block out humiliation and embarrassment when Snape mocked her yet again in lessons or Ron rolled his eyes when she corrected his essay after he had _asked_. Until eventually the sneers rolled off her back as she smiled at them in return, and they began to cower in response to the wickedness hidden in her eyes. She saw Harry become obsessive and depressed during their sixth year and sat by him in darkened corridors late at night under the invisibility cloak, studying the Marauder’s Map like his life depended on it (to him it did). Harry saw Draco Malfoy as he moved about and sometimes disappeared for hours on end. Hermione saw the houses. She saw the secret meetups in the dead of night, Gryffindors and Slytherins with names far too close for anything other than lovers. She saw siblings sneaking into towers and dungeons and kitchens to talk about their days when their interactions were frowned upon. She saw muggleborn Slytherins who avoided their common room like the plague and sons and daughters of Slytherins exiled from Gryffindor, and Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff because of their parents. How was this fair?

And Hermione did the one thing she swore she wouldn’t. She began to understand Tom Riddle. 

It would be so easy to monopolise on all the hate and mistrust ingrained in the Wizarding World. Their whole lives were written based on the colours on their school ties. Slytherins were the power-hungry purebloods, Hufflepuffs the weak-willed servers and pushovers, Ravenclaws the researchers and teachers with Gryffindors the brave and righteous. Hermione loved her house, but they were not perfect. They were reckless and impulsive and ruthless. They didn’t care for rules most of the time, so who decided they would be able to remake the world once the war was done?

When her sixth year ended and Dumbledore fell from the tower, she knew it was the end. She went home, packed her things into the illegal beaded bag she made (she never claimed to be any better than the rule-breakers of her house), and obliviated her parents. She did not cry, Hermione stopped being that innocence little muggleborn years ago. When she arrived at the Weasleys’ a day earlier than she had said, she smiled at each of them and retreated to Ginny’s room. They asked questions, of course, but she would only say something inane and redirect the conversation to the wedding, to the war, to quidditch if she had to, as long as they did not dig too deeply into her web of lies. 

(She thought back to her sorting and how it took five minutes for the hat to decide, and how Harry was not the only member of the Golden Trio to be offered the snakes’ pit.)

Fred cornered her one day, a week or so before they left to get Harry, and said she had changed. Hermione claimed it was part of growing up, but they both knew that wasn’t what he meant as he walked away shaking his head. They started staying up at night together, by accident at first, until it became routine. One night he brought out firewhiskey and she raised an eyebrow and asked what his mother would think. He replied that he technically didn’t live there anymore so what could she do and there was a war coming so if she did do something it probably wouldn’t be drastic. And slyly he added, you’re of age so it’s allowed, and your body is probably already eighteen what with that time turner you used to have.

She had turned to him a defence springing to her lips (lying had become second nature, she didn’t want to think about what that meant), but instead she leaned forward and kissed him. It was messy and clumsy and unlike any other she had had. It was also the first thing she had truly felt in a while. (Occlumency could sometimes be too good, or bad depending on your perspective.)

It lasted for hours and seconds all at the same time. Fred, for his part, didn’t seem shocked. He was there, teeth clashing and hands tugging, squeezing, consuming. Hermione poured all the feelings she had squirrelled away in the past three years into him, anger at Umbridge, frustration at Harry and Ron, jealousy and sadness and loss- until it became need, for hope, for peace, for _him, him, him._

A thud sounded from upstairs and they sprang apart eyes fixed on each other, until Fred stepped back, drained his drink, and left with a _see you tomorrow, Granger_ , and a wink. 

Hermione stood there, trying to puzzle out her emotions. Why had she kissed Fred? She liked Ron, right? He’d called out her name when he was poisoned, it was only a matter of time, people had been saying that for years. Yes, he was a git and didn’t really listen to her when she talked about homework, and he only really talked about quidditch. But they worked _, right?_

That was when she realised that she hadn’t liked Ron in weeks, maybe it had gotten swept up in her purge of emotions and trapped behind some forgotten wall in her mind. Maybe it had disappeared once she let threats be no more than words. Or maybe it really was just a childhood crush. Either way, with all her shields finally down, there was no lingering attachment to Ronald beyond friend. 

(For some reason this was a relief, a weight off of her back.)

The next day they went to rescue Harry, and she felt different but the same in a way she hadn’t realised she was. She helped Moody with the plan and fooled Harry and noticed the discrete glances Fred sent her way. She didn’t return them, now was not the time for distractions. She noticed the glances from Ron as well, prickling the back of her neck, those she ignored.

She rode with Kingsley, who was as removed from himself as she was, and Hermione understood what a Slytherin tactic it was to not feel as you should. (She couldn’t bring herself to mourn the loss, now was not the time.) They worked together as a team, twenty-five years and opposing houses between them, and still they could fire off spells in synchronisation and not a care for the impacts on those they were fighting.

When they got back to the Burrow, George had been cursed and Moody had died, but Fred was okay, and Ron and Harry and everyone else. Remus had held up his wand against Kingsley and then herself and Hermione turned to Ron and asked him for the name of his crush in fifth year, her wand over his heart. She didn’t miss the hurt look on his face, or the questions on everyone else’s, she just walked into the kitchen, put the kettle on, and made tea laced with firewhiskey. Kingsley followed behind her, commended her on her duelling, and got the cups down from the shelf. 

Fred didn’t leave George’s side all night so once everyone had gone to bed she crept down and sat in the silence. Kingsley joined her after a while, and they talked about trivial things. Until she asked him why. (Why do you hide your emotions? Why did you risk your life for Harry? Why am I doing this to myself?)

_I lost many friends in the first war,_ was his answer. _But I lost many before that too. It is not easy being a Slytherin in a family of Gryffindors, nor is it easy being friends with them. My housemates were being recruited while I was at school, and I do not blame them for their choice, it is a very hard thing to say no to Voldemort, I do blame them for their actions and their emotions. I am fighting the people I had classes with, the people I ate with, studied with, helped with homework and slept in the same rooms as. But they also murdered my friends. If I felt, I would hesitate, and if I did that, I would die. I have no plans for dying this year, Hermione, and you shouldn’t either._

_I do it because I can’t do the alternative,_ she replied. _I felt everything so intensely, mainly bad things, and it was too much, especially after fourth year. I guess I wanted to focus on what was important, necessary, and that wasn’t me, it was Harry. It was the students I had to look after and the ones I failed to save. If Harry or Ron or Luna or Neville or Ginny or any of the Weasleys or people in my year or below die, that is my fault. Not fully, but there is always something I could have done. Harry needed and needs me to be the brains, the books, and I can’t do that if I’m crying over everything that could go wrong._

Kingsley had sat there, sipping his spiked tea, and said _be careful_ before asking her opinion on the uses of dragon’s blood in potions.

Fred had joined her again the next night and the next and the next and the next, leading up to the wedding. They talked some more and kissed some more, and did more than kiss sometimes, but they didn’t tell anyone. Fred, because his mum didn’t need any more stress right now and Ron would probably explode, and Hermione because she was leaving and those times with Fred were the ones where she actually allowed herself to feel and she didn’t want anyone to take that away.

At the wedding they danced with others and each other, Hermione spent time with Viktor and Fred went to flirt with Fleur’s Veela cousins. 

They didn’t get to say goodbye. 

\----------

Harry was a ghost of himself, he blamed himself for the problems at the ministry, and the Weasley’s being targeted, and everything in between. Ron was sweet at first, but slowly became moody and angry. When they couldn’t go back to Grimmauld Place it got worse.

Ron was injured, and they drifted from place to place, not doing anything, no progress, surviving. The night Ron decided to leave, he had been wearing the necklace for eighteen hours, he was meant to hand it off six hours ago to Hermione, but he had refused. He snapped. Hermione had seen the looks he had given her most nights since they had left, sitting just a little bit too close, holding her hand and looking confused when she pulled away, joining her on watches.

Ron had never really understood hers and Harry’s relationship, friends, but more like siblings than anything else. So apparently all the hugging and talking had transferred over in Ron’s head, to dating. 

And then suddenly, it was just the two of them. 

They started sleeping in the same bed to feel less alone, sometimes falling asleep on the sofa, or outside taking watch together. They barely talked, they had less, and less food and Hermione started eating less _(for Harry, for Harry, for Harry)_ , they were surviving.

By the time Ron rescued Harry from the bottom of a lake, she had occluded most of her emotions. Seeing Ron managed to break some wall in her mind, and her anger, and resentment, and fear were there in full force. _(She may have forgiven, but she never forgot.)_

The weeks go by quickly when you don’t eat regularly, or talk, or smile. Ron tried his best to talk to her, make her happy, make her like him again. He didn’t understand that she would never like him like that and she couldn’t at the moment, anyway. (She never told Harry and Ron about her occlumency; they wouldn’t understand- it was barbaric, wrong, not _good_.)

(She didn’t think about how she wasn’t sure she was good anymore, how she manipulated, and schemed, and had read more books in the Hogwarts library than anyone since Tom Riddle, and that scared her, somewhere behind one of her walls.)

When they spoke the taboo, Hermione felt part of herself, her wards, go. She was scrambling for her bag, her wand, and then they were running. She shot hexes behind her, as curses flew for their heels. Ron had never been one for duelling and Hermione was running on one meal a day since Ron had returned (that Weasley appetite didn’t seem to understand what being on the run meant).

She fired illegal spells at the snatchers and Harry sent glances her way as she maintained a constant shield to his back at the same time. She knew, she just knew, that they weren’t going to make it out of this. So, she sent a hex at Harry to obscure his face until his incredible luck hopefully came through for him, and they were taken in. 

Malfoy Manor was cold and harsh, and suited the lifeless family occupying it well. They looked lost, like this was the opposite of what they expected when they signed themselves over to the Dark Lord. (Hermione didn’t know what else they could have expected, at fifteen she had understood that someone who lived in the library was either lonely or alone (she also understood that they were two very different ideas), and that if that someone then rose to power, they did not believe that they had equals.)

She could tell that something bad was going to happen when she was made to stay above while Harry and Ron went downstairs. One look at Bellatrix’s face, and she knew it would not be nice, it would not be pretty. One look at Draco’s face, then Narcissa’s, then Lucius’, and she knew they would not risk themselves for her. (She couldn’t blame them, not really. Would she die for them? Maybe once upon a time, when she had compassion, kindness, hope, belief.)

It hurt, and it hurt, and it hurt. Hermione was writhing on the floor, the carpet below her stained with her blood. She wondered if the Malfoys were surprised when it ran as red as their own. Her walls were breaking with each flick of Bellatrix’s wand, but she held on enough to deny and scream and keep her boys safe. They were _hers_ to protect, _hers_ to keep alive. 

(When she thought about it later (the gleam of the chandelier, manic eyes, explosions of hair, bared teeth) she decided this was when it changed, when she was no longer surviving, but existing-

What is living without feeling and feeling without caring, after all?)

Then Dobby came and saved them (their word not hers-

Saving is not the simple act of taking her body, her mind was fractured in that drawing room, carpet stained with her blood. It was hidden at the back of the library buried between potions and defence against the dark arts shelves, in the clawing of hands and clashing of teeth at 3am with Fred and a bottle of firewhiskey, in Kingsley’s whispered _be careful_ when he knew she wouldn’t be.)

Fleur patched her up with bandages and pies and cups of tea (no firewhiskey, though). She thought she would recover or at least try to. Bill saw the shadows haunting Hermione’s eyes (or the lack of depth beyond them) and understood that sometimes it is a choice between existing and ending, and sometimes there is no choice at all. 

Harry and Ron sat beside her and asked when she would be ready to go. (It’s not that they were being cruel or callous _(except they were),_ more that they didn’t- couldn’t- wouldn’t- understand that she was no longer the same person who had said being expelled was worse than dying, who had danced with Viktor and cried on the stairs because of Ron, who was jealous of Lavender but said she wasn’t.)

So, she carried on, faked smiles and haunted eyes, held hands while comforting her boys about her injuries, and made a plan to get into Gringotts.

They got in and got out, betrayed by a goblin (what did you expect) and riding a dragon (heights no longer mattered), and just because she no longer cared about people didn’t mean she didn’t _care_ about the creatures. (Centaurs- house elves- giants- merpeople- goblins- dragons- everything in between.)

\----------

Aberforth was nothing like they were expecting, distant and lost and lonely and honest. Hermione defended Dumbledore without thought _(for Harry, for Harry, for Harry)_ and then stopped when she realised how very much like Tom Riddle he was, with his scheming and lying and _for the greater good_. Hermione did not want to be like Albus and Tom. She wanted to be like Kingsley- distant and Slytherin and _good_. (Or at least she hoped so.)

She filed away her worries and questions on the third shelf from the left between seventh year Herbology notes and the colour of Harry’s eyes in her head, and focused on keeping herself alive, living, surviving, existing. (They had a war to win.)

\----------

The Room of Requirement was different which meant it was the same, as were the people who clamoured towards them, limping and wincing, shouting _Harry Harry Harry_. Ron ran off to his siblings and Harry had a crowd five people wide on all sides. Hermione moved off to the sides and marvelled at the books that she had read, piled up against a wall (first year potions, creatures of the deep, muggle wars, goblin invasions of the 1200s).

Luna came up beside her and said, _spiders run from snakes, but you do not_. Hermione didn’t say that that was because she thought she was more like a snake than anything else now. She didn’t say that Ron would be scared of her if he saw her now, much like those spiders he feared.

(She just said that everyone was different but the same, but that she was the same but different and that changed everything. Luna nodded and squeezed her hand and said that was fine, change is good.)

Time moved quickly after those short minutes in the room, the Battle was starting, the Order was there- Fred was there, smiling and laughing and living (not just existing). She pulled him towards her before it began, hands searching, eyes locked, lips brushing. Some people saw, some didn’t but she didn’t care (Ron didn’t, Harry did, eyes alight with understanding).

And then they were fighting. The Room of Requirement was different again, forgotten objects piled high- she wondered whether people ever got lost among the stacks, stayed there because it felt like home.

Then they found Malfoy and his cronies sending fiendfyre and Avada’s at them. Harry, ever the hero, decided to save them (all she could think about was the time at Malfoy Manor, laying on the floor, Malfoy’s face while she was screaming and he didn’t save her (she didn’t blame him, she wouldn’t have saved him) and how now she was risking her life for them because of Harry, and his hero complex).

_(For Harry for Harry for Harry.)_

After that, it was a whirlwind of spells and shields and screams. She ran with Ron and Harry, saw a fourth year who shouldn’t be here fighting death eaters and Seamus and Dean, back to back, hands clasped.

They turned a corner, Ron was beside her, with Harry shooting spells behind them. Fred was there _(thank Merlin thank Merlin thank Merlin)_ with George and Percy. They were fighting the Minister and a few other death eaters, and despite everything, they were smiling and laughing while fighting for their lives.

\----------

It happens suddenly. One of the death eaters fires a spell, George ducks, it hits a wall. It crumbles down and there are screams and cries and a flash of red.

She’s screaming, pleading, with anyone, anything-

Because there on the floor is Fred. The slab covering his face is moved. Blood splattered. Eyes glassy. A smile stretched across his lips turns so quickly to a grimace of pain in her mind.

She’s running running running. (Because maybe if she gets there he’s not really dead. Maybe if she gets there she can die instead.)

(Why does feeling hurt so much?

Why can she never occlude when it comes to him?)

She blasts everyone away and removes the final pieces pinning Fred down. Hermione clings to his body. Head in the crook of his neck just like so many times before in much better situations.

There’s a ringing in her ears and a wailing coming from nearby and she wants to tell whoever it is to _shut-the-fuck-up_ but then she realises it’s her and she can’t stop.

Once she’s gotten control over her words again she recites healing spell after healing spell over and over from the numerous books she’s read and organised in her head over the past few years. (Never did she imagine it would be Fred lying before her, body limp, eyes glassy, face split in a last grin.)

What feels like hours later but can only really be seconds, everyone swarms Fred once more. There are arms grabbing at Hermione, trying to pull her away, and she fights back kicking and clawing and screaming, a heart wrenching sound.

Until George is there.

One look at the people around her and they back off, and then it’s Hermione and the twins, not arguing, but clinging to each other as best as can happen when one is dead.

She had always wondered how much Fred told George about her. She was never really sure what she meant to him and she didn’t really want to know, she would either feel guilty for taking advantage of him or sad if it meant nothing. Now she knew.

Her loss would never be as great as George’s. The twins were too close, had experienced too much life together for her time of not even a year to compare. But it meant something to her, and to Fred, thankfully.

After a few moments Hermione finally relaxed enough to peel her limbs off of Fred- _eyes glassy, hair as bright as the blood on her hands-_ and stood, turning to Harry and Ron.

Their mouths were open, tears tracing tracks on their cheeks, staring at her like she was a stranger. (She supposed that this part of her was.)

Hermione threw up rudimentary shields in her mind, wincing at the force and knowing she would crash as soon as they came down, and told Harry to find _Him,_ ignoring the shock on their faces at her sudden change in persona once more, and they went to the shack.

\----------

Hearing Snape dying was horrible, he didn’t scream or cry out, but quiet noises came from inside the shack and when they stepped inside and saw the mess of flesh that used to be his neck- well, Hermione knew that two years ago she would have vomited and probably broke down. As it was, Harry looked away and Ron was sick (just a little bit, though).

Instead she walked over and knelt by his side (no one should have to die alone). They made eye contact and she was in his mind, leglimency drawing her in. She saw flashes of potions, Voldemort and a woman with Harry’s eyes- _Lily-_ before words spoke into her mind. _Harry must know the truth, take them._

Memories slide showed as tears trickled from his eyes and he uttered aloud _take them_ again to make sure she knew and to tell Harry and Ron who had recovered from the state of Snape’s injuries. Harry started to protest when she got up to leave. ( _Surely there must be something you can do, anything, help him._ )

How do you explain the pure look of hopelessness in Snape’s eyes? He didn’t expect to survive Voldemort. How do you tell a boy who was the embodiment of hope, that some people just wanted to die? _(She couldn’t say anything, it would give herself away, she already felt lost after losing-)_

Hermione turned and walked out the door, head held high. The walk back to the castle was long, but quiet. Neither of the boys knew what to say.

\-----------

After Voldemort’s threatening speech that no one really paid attention to, Harry raced off to see Snape’s memories and Ron went to see Fr- his brother. Hermione sat down on the steps.

Minutes later, Luna sat down beside her, “Fred was always nice to me, did you know that? He didn’t tease me or steal my shoes like other older boys. When my shoes went missing the second time, the boys who did it gave them back and they had bright pink hair. It didn’t really suit them, but who am I to judge people’s fashion choices. He could see thestrals as well. I never knew why, but he would come with me sometimes to feed them and then he would plait my hair.”

They sat together for a time before Hermione whispered, “he was three. The first war had just finished but some people were still getting killed. Molly’s friend Samantha had been in a fight. Fred didn’t know what was happening, so he went downstairs with George, but he was in front. She died on their sofa and Fred saw it. But he didn’t want George to see it, so he said his mum had dropped something and then said they needed to go because she was coming.”

“He was always very brave.”

“I don’t want him to be brave,” Hermione shouted, her walls crumbling slightly, “I want him to be here, with me, so I don’t have to deal with everyone thinking I’m crazy or emotional or a bossy know-it-all, because he understood.”

Luna smiled sadly, her eyes full, “you should go and see Harry, he’s not coping very well.”

Luna walked away, and sat down next to Neville who was sat against the door into the Great Hall. Hermione walked in the direction of the Headmaster’s Office.

She found Harry in a hallway halfway there. He was leaning against a wall, eyes shut, fiddling with Draco’s wand. He saw her when she was a few metres away, he smiled softly and she hugged him (like a sister, a mother, a friend). She felt tears through her top, and quiet sniffles from years spent hiding in a cupboard _(-don’t make a sound)._

They walked back to the Great Hall together, hand in hand. Ron was looking for them, his eyes narrowing in suspicion when he saw them. (Couldn’t he see that her world had just come crashing down? Didn’t he know that Harry was about to-)

She was calm when Harry told them about what happened that night nearly seventeen years ago. She was calm when he said to her _I think you already know._ And she was calm when she answered.

Hermione offered to go with him, of course she did. He was her brother, her family, or at least the only one she had left after she wiped her parents’ memories. But it was in the set of his shoulders, the glint in his eyes: he was going alone.

Once he had gone, Hermione hugged Ron, and walked him back into the Great Hall-

There was a flash of red on the floor, bright in the cold room. Blue eyes twin to the ones she loved were filled with pain and locked on hers. Before Hermione really knew what was happening she was collapsed on the floor, screaming and clawing at Ron. His eyes were so lost as he murmuring _he’ll be okay, Harry always survives._ She couldn’t find it in herself to tell him that her screams weren’t for Harry. They were for his brother.

Strong arms wrapped around her too-light frame, lifting her towards that body on the floor. She wanted to see it, see those eyes without life and that mouth without a smile; to know he was truly gone. But she wanted to run, and run, and never stop running as well.

_(How does she live in a world without Fred?)_

George put her down on the hard, stone floor. She didn’t feel the cold, or the draft in this particular spot. She felt his hand in hers, so cold and limp. (If he was alive he would make a joke about her squeezing to hard, and she would roll her eyes, saying _girls are strong too._ ) George takes her other hand, warm and calloused in the same places, but without the scar across his palm from falling off his broom into a hedge when he was seven.

They sit there for a while, and Hermione thinks of everything she wants to tell him about being on the run. _It sounds so dramatic,_ he would say, _saying on the run, like you’re in one of those muggle films._ It’s not, she would reply, we were starving, and angry, and Ron left us. _Well, he’s always been a bit of a twat, but he came and found me and George. I couldn’t talk to him for three weeks but after that he helped us with Potter Watch, and then he disappeared._ He found us.

(What she doesn’t say: I wish you’d found us. Maybe then you’d be alive.)

_(But then maybe Ron would be dead instead.)_

(Is it bad that I might prefer that?)

At some point George stood up and started talking to his parents in hushed tones, before laying down on the other side of Fred, his head on his brother’s chest, willing life into him. And at some point a while later, Ron had come over, whispered _I didn’t know, I’m sorry_ into her hair, and hugged her like she was a little child.

\----------

An hour later, an unnatural silence spread over the castle.

\-----------

Everyone gathers outside, and she sees _him-_ Voldemort. He’s reptilian, and pale, and he would be scary if she was still the same Hermione from a year ago. (Now scary is her parents never knowing her again, their blood splashed on the floor in her nightmares. It’s Bellatrix looming over her, Greyback’s hands on her thighs.)

Harry calls him Tom. She understands, it’s a way of undermining him, breaking the character he created, reducing him to a child. But he’s not Tom anymore. His eyes glint with something that used to be calculation _(Dumbledore’s sometimes looked the same)_ but has deteriorated into something else akin to madness.

Tom was smart, charismatic, influential without the backing of a name or money or connections. This _creature_ is not Tom. (She would know, she read the files and articles and even his potion essays _(anything she could get her hands on, really),_ she knows Tom better than most.) He was manipulative and cold and sociopathic, but he had a goal. Simple enough, take over the Wizarding World. It was the reasoning that intrigued her, he was lonely, he didn’t understand why his father didn’t want him, he didn’t understand why he was looked down upon for something he couldn’t help. He used blood prejudice because it was _easy_ , people in power flock to power, if Tom wanted to _be_ powerful, he needed to show that he _could_ be.

Voldemort wants power for the sake of power, there is so little humanity left that he warrants unnecessary, well, _everything._ There’s no logic, and that’s what disappoints her most of all. (There’s nothing Hermione is, if not logical.)

His red eyes scan the gathered crowd of fighters, blood-stained and battle-hardened but hopeful and defiant. Their eyes meet, she feels a pressure in her head and strengthens her already failing shields. Voldemort moves on quickly but cackling laughter rings in her ears and a smugness imprints itself on her brain.

Ginny screams. People whisper. Ron at her side shouts _Harry._ And then she sees him.

His hair is still messy, and his jeans are frayed at the bottom from a year in a tent in various locations. She knew this would happen, she sent him off to his death knowing it was necessary for them to win, so she doesn’t cry, or scream, or shout. She’s a blank slate. Ron is clinging to her arm, trying to comfort her. She doesn’t need it. _She knew this would happen._

When Neville steps forward, Hermione is finally scared. She can’t lose him too. Neville, that scared little boy who kept losing his toad should not die at the hands of his parents’ torturer, _her_ torturer. Hermione is prepared to throw herself in front of him, if necessary, even if she had planned on being the one to finally run Voldemort through.

But he’s being brave. Neville never believed that he should be in Gryffindor, despite the points in first year, and now he’s there. Standing up to Voldemort himself, proud, and-

Neville pulling the sword out of the hat is a rallying call for the DA, and everyone else. Spells start flying, many towards Hermione, and it starts again. She spares a look at Hagrid, sees him bellowing with a confused expression, his arms empty, and can hardly contain her grin. _Harry’s alive!_

Nagini dies, her head separated from her body, and all Hermione can think is that _they’ve nearly done it._ Nearly, but not quite yet.

\----------

After, there is cheering and crying, people screaming for loved ones, and those who stand, huddled in groups, staring into space.

Harry gets swarmed by people as soon as Voldemort falls. Hermione sees him from five metres away, hands shaking, eyes wide. He can’t believe what he’s done, but now it’s sinking in. He is free. And that’s when he panics.

They get him out. Ron, wonderstruck and tired, pushes through the people yelling to _lay off, give him some space._ Ginny, trembling and disbelieving that the ghost who has haunted her since she was eleven has finally gone, kneels beside him with her strong hands and kind eyes, to pull him away. Hermione, golden eyes cold and hard as diamond, surveys the surrounding and then, once Ron has cleared off enough people, creates a bubble around the four of them.

Neville attracts his own crowd, for the first time being heralded as a hero. His face is pinched, his mind screaming, and all he can think is about the scared little boy he used to be, his only friend a swotty muggleborn who helped him look for his toad. Luna stands beside him, asking him questions about plants when it starts to get too much. He’s thankful that there’s always been one thing that he’s good.

Luna’s hair is longer than it’s ever been, her eyes are glazed, seeing Colin Creevey and Lavender Brown and Fred Weasley and Nymphadora Tonks and Remus Lupin in her head, seeing the life leave them as they fall. She wears a wistful smile, death is a part of life, they are somewhere else. Somewhere better, she hopes.

The Weasley Twins are no more, George has tears etched into his skin. Rule Number 54 says that they never cry in front of others. But Rule Number 1 is never leave a twin in need alone, and Fred isn’t there when he needs him, so George thinks he’s allowed. Half of him is gone, his heart and mind and soul are fractured, irrevocably damaged. Fred was loud and brash and impulsive and so smart, Hermione smart. He doesn’t know how to live without him.

\----------

Kingsley finds Hermione sat on the bridge outside, legs dangling down below. He brings the bottle of firewhiskey they started nearly a year ago. They don’t talk, he just pulls her into his side and strokes her hair. They’ve known each other for years now, he’s seen her grow up in the dark, dank halls of Grimmauld Place. She looks so different from that small, bushy-haired child she used to be. Cheeks gaunt, hair limp, and eyes filled with pain.

Eventually the sun sets. (Isn’t it strange how much can happen in a single day.) they go inside, see the huddles of people gathered in the atrium, in the courtyards, in the hall. The dead are no longer there, moved to individual rooms deeper in the castle.

Kingsley gets stopped as soon as they walk through the doors he’s Minister of Magic now. Hermione carries on. Meandering down corridors aimlessly, until the only people she sees are the few portraits still in their frames. She stops in front of a nondescript door, slightly battered, but all of them are in this castle.

Hermione walks through the doorway engraved with initials, the latest looking freshly done. (JP+LE. SB+RL. GW+AJ. FW+HG.)

He’s there.

Fred is laid out on a transfigured bed, hands clasped, hair messy. His eyes are shut- he could be sleeping. _(How she wishes he was sleeping.)_ The room is empty, which is surprising, you hardly saw one Weasley twin without the other, _(Don’t think about that.),_ but Hermione is glad.

Tears are dripping onto the floor, the sound bouncing on the stone walls. It’s too quiet. He should be laughing, she should be berating, _(they should be happy)._

Hermione walks over, takes his cold, cold hand in hers, warms it up. Her lips together, holding a sob in, (she can’t break the silence) as she lays down beside him. (She’s so tired. _Will it ever end, Fred? I just want to go home._ _Please hold me, I’m breaking at the seams, I’m going to fall apart.)_

Her cheek is laid on his chest where it’s meant to be, she feels at peace.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, I might expand at some point, but probably not. If you want to, leave kudos or comment. :)


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